Take a look at our general information about our Italian language courses.
At the Piccola Università Italiana, you will find just the language course in Italy you are looking for.
Who are our students?
The diversified selection of Italian language courses at our Italian language schools in Italy is directed to a great variety of students, which guarantees the colourful mix of people of our schools to make friends with people from all over the world. Our courses are aimed at employees of international companies who need Italian in their professional lives, at university students who study romance languages or languages in general, or simply at people who appreciate this kind of cultural holiday through immersion where a better understanding of Italian culture and the Italian way of life is obtained. A lot of our students just simply love Italy, Dolce Vita, Italian food, the Italian language and they value the professional and personal Italian lessons in a relaxed atmosphere.
Depending on the month of the year, age and nationality may vary.
The minimum age is 16 (for students aged 16-17 an authorization form signed by parents needs to be sent together with the booking).
Read more about our students here.
Inscription fee
Our Italian language schools offer a number of services included in the obligatory inscription fee:
- Teaching material, writing pad, school bag
- Written and oral placement test
- Certificate and confirmation of participation
- Map and information, excursion tips
- Club card
- A presentation including a welcome cocktail
- Historical guided city tour
- Video evenings and Italian film classics
- 2 half-day excursions in the school’s minibus OR
in case that accommodation was arranged through the school, students may also choose the pick-up transfer on arrival and on departure
– for the school in Trieste: from and to the following airports: Trieste (TRS), Venezia Marco Polo (VCE), Treviso (TSF) and Ljubljana (LJU)
– for the school in Tropea: from and to the following airport: Lamezia Terme (SUF)
Group courses with only 3 – 8 students per class
To enable you as many chances as possible to practise speaking we limit group numbers of our group courses to a maximum of 8 participants at each level. On the first day of the language course, all students participate in a written and oral placement test. This test is the basis for placement in one of our 15 levels of competence. In case it is not possible for a student to be allocated to a group at the proper level (with 3-8 participants), then this student will be placed in a 2 to 1 course or will receive private tuition with the number of lessons reduced by half. The language students are in this way guaranteed highest learning efficiency.
Placement into groups of 15 levels of language competence
It is very important to us that our students are placed into groups at the appropriate language level. Students will receive an e-mail containing an online written test which takes about 30 minutes, the test is then corrected in the framework of an oral test at school on the first day of course. Students are then placed into one of 15 levels of language competence! The course is designed to satisfy your individual language needs, this is achieved by placing you at the appropriate level just right for you.
Duration of a lesson
The duration of a lesson unit for all Italian language courses is 55 minutes.
N.B.: (The duration of our Junior programme, the one-to-one online courses and most activity plus elements have a different lesson duration.)
Teaching methods
At Piccola Università Italiana we focus on effective learning and harmonious development of the four language skills. This teaching approach also includes contributions from playful teaching and various methods of the humanistic-affective approach. Attention is placed on the student, on his actual learning.
The vehicle of communication is the Italian language, a full immersion experience, in fact, we believe that this is the best way to learn a language and have results in no time. Furthermore, there are indoor and outdoor educational activities, which allow you to live the experience of language learning at 360 degrees. Your learning experience will be completed by the cheerful ambience at our schools, because learning Italian should be fun and make you happy.
Courses
Our course programme is divided into the following categories: